by Alan Russell
CHAPTER 15:
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
Once I reached the safety of my car, I started taking in deep breaths, but it still felt as if no oxygen was reaching my lungs. My hyperventilating made me dizzy, and my body temperature went from hot to cold, and I started shivering. I suppose I was undergoing mild shock, but I was aware enough to feel my partner pawing at me. His nails raked my side and my legs, and felt enough like tickling to make me laugh.
“Okay,” I said, “okay.”
Sirius still wasn’t convinced I was all right. He nudged my neck a few times with his muzzle, and I reached back and ran my hand along the side of his head.
“Thanks,” I said at the comforting touch and concern of an old friend.
I hadn’t been ready for my old friend PTSD, and if I’d had half a brain, I should have told Dr. Inferno I wasn’t comfortable with his performance, but pride had kept me quiet. I hadn’t wanted him to know just how scared I was of his fire act.
I took a deep breath. My burn counselor would have described what had happened as a “hiccup” or “slight misstep.” That’s how they talk in rehab. It had been almost three years since Sirius and I had taken our fire walk. Somehow the fire still managed to surface, and to burn.
Another breath, another confession: “That’s why I stopped seeing Haines,” I said, admitting it to Sirius. “I wanted to put the fire behind me. But we have to visit with him tomorrow, and I’ve got that pit-in-the-stomach feeling. He’s the one who should be feeling that way, not me. He’s the one behind bars; he’s the one sentenced to death. So why am I the one who feels tied up in knots?”
I thought about Lisbet. She wanted more from our relationship. She wanted more from me. It was clear that I hadn’t committed, that I wasn’t “all in.” Why was it I could tell Sirius secrets that I kept from her? Wrong Pauley came to mind again. He had opened up to Sirius and allowed me to be an eavesdropper to their conversation. And his most unselfish act had been to give up his beloved Ginger, who had loved him for all his faults.
Maybe I was scared to let Lisbet see me afraid. It was easier not to say anything, easier not to open up. But secrets came with a weight. And it was hard for relationships to support that kind of weight.
I had opened up to her about some things, but more because I had to than because I had wanted to. Because we sometimes shared a bed, she knew about my PTSD and that I occasionally had night terrors. But if our relationship was to go to the next level, I needed to get past one day at a time. I either needed to fish or cut bait. Lisbet was probably more right than wrong in saying our relationship felt like an affair. When one partner has a lot of secrets, how could it help but feel like anything else?
“Call Lisbet,” I told my phone.
She answered on the first ring. “I was just thinking about you.”
“And you still picked up?”
“You sound tired.”
“I guess I am. It’s been a long day. Sirius and I started the day at the elementary school where that shooting took place. Sirius got a standing ovation, while I played second fiddle.”
Sirius’s ears perked up at the mention of his name.
“I’ll bet the kids loved you.”
“I’m glad they got a kick out of our dog and phony show. They’ve been through enough.”
“Any leads on the Reluctant Hero?”
“They might not be exactly leads, but at least I now have a few things to look at.”
“I prayed for you today,” Lisbet said. “I asked for angels to watch over you.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I thought I was the one who was supposed to be helping the angels.”
“Symbiotic relationships are the best.”
“I’ll try and remember that.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m out at the parking lot of the Magic Castle.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I came and interviewed one of the performers. Up until recently he was an engineer working full time in the drone industry.”
“But now he’s a magician?”
“He’s a fire performer,” I said. My tone changed, becoming more personal and more honest. “While I was talking with him, he was fooling around and doing some of his performance. He scared the hell out of me, but I didn’t let him see how afraid I was.”
“So you just suffered in silence?”
“What doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger.”
“And pride goeth before a fall.”
“I fall before your big proverbial guns. You had me at ‘goeth.’ ”
“I’m glad.”
“Sometimes being scared isn’t so bad, though. The first time you came over to my place, I decided to get a romantic fire going in the fireplace. It took all my nerve to start that fire, and the only thing that got me near the fireplace was cuddling with you. But it was worth it.”
“Next time let me start the fire.”
“That’s a deal.”
“You need to get a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’re going to see him tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Lisbet knew about my appointment with Ellis Haines. “Yes.”
“I’ll pray for you again.”
“That will be my secret weapon.”
“Yes, it will.”
I wish I had her faith. I didn’t, but I was still glad her faith was on my side.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked.
“I sure hope so.”
“Me too,” she said. “Good night.”
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I knew Lisbet would have preferred ending our conversation with each of us saying, “I love you.” But she didn’t say it, to spare me. I wasn’t good at declaring my love. Maybe I didn’t like feeling that vulnerable or exposed. I did love Lisbet, but it was easier for me to offer up some rhyme or funny line.
The dial tone told me she wasn’t there. “I love you,” I said.
We made it home a little before eight. There was a familiar foreign sports car in Seth’s driveway that I’d seen a few times. If memory served me, the car belonged to a redhead I’d glimpsed on early mornings when both of us were leaving for work.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with my cooking tonight,” I told Sirius.
Since fruit and veggies had been a big part of my talk, I heated up a little olive oil, added a few florets of broccoli, a third of a cut-up carrot, and some green beans. Between my sautéing, I added cooked chicken breast and scooped out a cup of kibble. Then I mixed everything together.
“Dinner is zerved,” I said, speaking with a French accent.
Sirius sniffed my concoction, decided it was probably edible, and started eating.
I opened my refrigerator door and poked around a little before giving up. There weren’t even any fishes and loaves. I opened the pantry closet door and debated between canned chili and canned ravioli. Chef Boyardee won. While the ravioli was being nuked, I poured two fingers of bourbon.
“Corn, rye, and barley, children,” I said, and took a sip.
I carried my drink and ravioli over to the easy chair and got comfortable. After a few sips of bourbon, the ravioli started tasting better. I picked up the remote, turned on the TV, and did some channel surfing. Even the bourbon didn’t help me find anything I wanted to watch. Eventually I settled on a cooking show. It seemed ironic that my evening’s repast had come from a can, and now I was watching chicken cacciatore being prepared.
Sirius came and joined me. Maybe he was hoping I’d be inspired to do some real cooking.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had chicken cacciatore,” I said. “What about you?”
It was the kind of thing his Uncle S
eth might have cooked for him, but without the white wine or garlic.
“The secret,” said the chef, offering up a smile that showed every one of her too white teeth, “is the capers.”
“Remember that, will you?” I said to Sirius. “The capers are the secret.”
It was a secret that would have to keep. There were no capers in the pantry, and I was pretty sure there never had been.
My eyes started getting heavy about the time the chicken thighs were being smothered in diced tomatoes. I don’t think I made it to the shot of the chef taking that first bite and then faking a culinary orgasm.
The smoke was everywhere. It was a black, strangling snake. It pressed on my throat, and constricted my insides. It was a poisonous snake, and there was no getting away from its poison. It burned my insides. My lungs were on fire.
I began coughing and couldn’t stop. My chest felt as if it were being hit by a hammer. It was all I could do to keep standing. Flames reached for me. I tried to shield my partner from their reach even as I coughed up lava. That’s what it felt like. Inside and outside I was on fire.
My paralysis didn’t go unnoticed. The Strangler was fighting the snake as well, but he didn’t have a bullet in his leg. And his partner wasn’t bleeding out. I knew what he was thinking. It was almost like his thoughts were in my head. He was going to drop my partner and run into the smoke. He would hide in its black embrace.
I shifted Sirius in my arms and raised my gun. Through my coughing I managed to croak, “Try it.”
“Try what?” the Strangler asked.
“Make a run for it.”
The voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like the rasp of some deadly creature, of something wild.
“No,” said the Strangler, afraid of my invitation. The killer was afraid of me.
“This way.” I motioned with my head, and we continued carrying Sirius through the flames, continued our march to hell.
As usual, I awakened with a gasp, sucking in as much air as I could. It didn’t matter that I’d relived my fire walk more than a hundred times; each time I felt the pain anew, and there was no building up any tolerance. My clothing was soaked from my night sweats, my flesh was hot, my pulse racing.
Sirius was there at my side. He always eased my landing. I suspect he had hastened the conclusion of my revisiting hell by nudging me and making noises.
“I’m okay,” I croaked, my throat still tight and sore from my remembrance of smoke inhalation past or somehow experiencing it again.
And then the relief swept over me. The closest I ever came to becoming a junkie was after the fire; I wouldn’t have survived if not for the pain meds. The momentary relief from pain, doled out just often enough to offer a memory of normality, kept me going. As the burning in my body and mind receded, I experienced my moment after. Seth said it was an opening of my third eye and a vision from the spirit world. It was my dream within a dream, my oracle who spoke to me, even if I often had trouble divining what it said. The insights my moment after afforded me came with a price: they only came after revisiting my fire walk with Ellis Haines.
At first it felt like I was looking at a Hitchcock film. Someone kept closing doors, windows, curtains, and shades.
“Keep out,” said Elle Barrett Browning. She wasn’t talking to me, but to someone I couldn’t see. “This is my home, and you’re trespassing.”
She closed more drapes, but to no avail. The flash of cameras kept going off.
And then a man ran to her side. “We have to leave,” he said. His coat covered up his face, and he raised it to shield her features.
He was hiding in plain sight; he was the Reluctant Hero. I identified him, but I didn’t know who he was. Or did I? And then I became part of the vision. I was walking along the sand, but something was wrong. There was this sound . . . this buzz. Angry bees were coming my way. I turned my head and saw the swarm. It looked like a twister was coming at me. There was only one possible escape, and I took it, throwing myself into the ocean.
I dove deep and didn’t come up for air for a very long time. When I broke the surface there was no sign of the swarm, but there was no sign of land either. It seemed as if I was in the middle of the ocean.
“I am going to drown,” I said, “unless I find an island.”
And then the waters around me roiled, and a whale sounded right next to me. An island had found me. The whale opened its mouth, and like Jonah I was swallowed up, and around me was blackness.
Insistent barking interrupted my vision. It was loud and serious, and demanded my attention. I opened my eyes. Sirius wasn’t letting up. This was his I-mean-business barking.
I jumped up to see what was bothering him. That’s when I saw the orange glow. This wasn’t my fire dream. This was a real fire. There were flames coming from the roof. I took a breath, steadied myself enough to face my fiery unresolved demons, and then ran for my phone.
I was a body in motion while making my 911 call. I raced outside and worked both hose and phone. While telling the dispatcher the nature of my emergency and where I lived, I sprayed my roof with water. The fire hissed its hatred as I continued the stream, aiming at its heart.
When I finished talking to the dispatcher, I yelled into my smartphone, “Call Shaman.”
I have a one-story ranch house. If it had been a two-story house, I might not have been able to save it. After being burned by fire, I had made sure my house had plenty of outside water pressure. The fire was getting the full force of the hose, which slowed its advance.
A sleepy voice spoke into my ear, “It’s late even for someone having a mid-life crisis.”
“There’s a fire on my roof!”
“I’m on it!”
Seth made it over in fifteen seconds. I wouldn’t have minded had he taken another five seconds to put on underwear, but I didn’t tell him that.
“There’s another hose on the side of the house!”
For a heavy guy, Seth moved very quickly. Moments later the spray from the second hose was raining down on the flames. Bit by bit the fire began retreating, but not without sounding like an enraged wildcat. It spat and hissed and batted at the spray, and its noises tugged at my short hairs. Sirius didn’t like it either and responded with growls.
It must not have been more than five minutes from the time I called 911 when approaching sirens could be heard. The fire was still putting up a fight, but the house was no longer in danger of going up in flames. I was lucky my roof had asphalt shingles, and not wooden shake shingles. The wood shingles look better, but they’re just kindling to a fire. Choosing function over aesthetics might have saved my life.
The fire crew took over, and while the flames were being extinguished, it sounded to me as if they were voicing the threat of “We’re not finisssssshed.”
“Are you all right?”
Seth was the one asking the question. A naked man who looked like the Laughing Buddha was concerned about my well-being.
“I am going to feel real bad if you get arrested for public indecency, Seth,” I said.
At that moment Seth’s redheaded lady friend appeared. She was wearing a Batik kimono robe that somehow looked wonderful on her even at two in the morning.
“Michael,” he said, “I don’t think you’ve met Tiffany.”
We shook hands, and I said to her, “Please take your naked hero home.”
Tiffany covered her mouth and giggled. And then she took her naked hero home.
CHAPTER 16:
BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK
The fever that came with being burned was upon me. I felt lightheaded and reckless. I was supposed to be living proof of the saying “Once burned, twice shy.” I needed to keep my distance from the burning infection of the past. Surviving fire had scarred me inside and out. After burn therapy, slathering on sunscreen and avoiding prolonged exposure to sunlight became
part of my daily regimen. On those days I neglected to do this, I paid for my negligence. It wasn’t only getting burned; it was like being touched with madness.
There were plenty of choices for my morning music. Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” almost got the nod. And I couldn’t have gone wrong choosing either The Doors’ “Light My Fire” or Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” But there really was only one choice: I called out my musical choice and then cranked up “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads.
“Let’s burn rubber,” I told Sirius.
In the backseat it looked like he was grinning.
Caffeine and music were going to get me through this day. I hadn’t slept since being awakened by the flames. In the light of day, the roof looked like a dragon had done some heavy breathing on it. To the visible eye you could no longer see the smoke, but it clung to the house and would for days to come. When I’d changed into what I thought were fresh clothes I quickly realized I smelled like a chimney.
The firefighters had admitted to me that my fire looked “suspicious.” Firemen are like cops; they are supposed to follow protocol and offer few opinions.
Captain Lance Redding had punted when it came to official comment. An inspection team would be going over my roof during the light of the day, he informed me. Unofficially, though, he admitted that it was obvious some kind of accelerant had been used to set the blaze.
He didn’t speculate as to how the accelerant had gotten up on the roof. I speculated plenty. I knew drones had the ability to drop and ignite accelerant. Fire has long been a part of every martial arsenal. My first Watch Sergeant had always lectured his charges to “Know thy enemy,” a quote he lifted from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I am not sure if he ever read Sun Tzu’s book, but he did love to quote from it.
After almost being consumed by fire, I decided to learn more about my enemy. Both my Watch Sergeant and Sun Tzu might have had a problem with me identifying fire as my enemy, but it was the demon I was still struggling to overcome. I had hoped studying fire would help me overcome my pyrophobia and lessen my PTSD. It’s a good thing that of late no one had bothered to ask, “How’s that working out for you?”
